


Strange Tales

by PlayerPiano



Category: Corpse Bride (2005)
Genre: Gen, POV First Person, alternative universe, strange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26311663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayerPiano/pseuds/PlayerPiano
Summary: Emily gives an interview. Barkis looks through a box. Victor writes a note. Victoria writes a letter. Four AU stories from the main characters' points of view.
Kudos: 8





	1. My Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

> These stories are weird. Not my usual at all. They're inspired by every time someone wrote to me and gave an idea, or a seed of an idea. unsure-sincerity was most recent, asking for a story where Emily became obsessed with Victor (hope it's what you wanted!). And then I started thinking about all the other what-if's people sent or chatted about over the years. A story from Barkis' point of view! What if Victoria traveled? I don't remember if the Victor one was all me or not.
> 
> Enjoy these weird little...things. Hope they're fun! I had fun writing them. -PP

My Best Friend

She isn't all right, is she?

Of course not, I'm so silly. You wouldn't be here if she was all right. I knew. Of course I did. But I hoped….have you a handkerchief, I'm sorry, I can't find mine…

Thank you.

From the beginning? I'll...I'll do my best. It's a long story.

He tried to kill me. I didn't die.

That's the beginning. Yes, I think that is the place to start.

When I was quite young, just barely seventeen, the man I loved robbed me and made an attempt on my life. I don't enjoy speaking about it. Ask anyone in the village, everyone knows. It was over twenty years ago now but in a village this size? Everyone remembers, do trust me.

Believe me when I say it was the very worst thing that has ever happened to me. I suppose that's not a surprise! I've done my best to come back from it, though. I play the piano. I teach music. And dancing.

No, I've never married. Would you have? No offense to you, gentlemen, I'm sure you're both lovely and have very nice wives. But I had a lot of time to think while I was lying there in the woods and while I recovered and then afterward, and...no thank you. No more romance for me.

I have my music and my students. Not so very many of them. That's how I met her. Victoria. Her mother sent her for elocution and finishing lessons provided we never touched the piano. Oh, did that become a bit of a joke between us!

I'm sorry. Please, just a moment, I need to…

Thank you. Pardon my outburst. Victoria. Yes. I was very fond of her. She was fond of me. I felt...almost like an aunt, I suppose. A close aunt.

Was. Was. Oh goodness.

No, I'm all right.

She was so unlike I was at her age! That's what struck me most about her. Shy. Not timid, just quiet and serious. That saying about still waters? That was her. And she was so dear and so kind, such a sweetness to her.

Oh listen to me, I'm making her sound dreadfully boring. She wasn't! It's hard to make someone understand who didn't know her. She was steadfast and she was loyal and she loved fiercely. I admired her, I truly did.

Victoria was such a lovely girl. Victor didn't deserve her.

You think I only say that because of what happened to me. You're wrong! So very wrong! Don't be silly. He honestly did not deserve her. I could tell. Victoria and I had spent two hours a week together for six months, including a tea break, and I knew her well enough to know that she'd never be happy with him.

It was her loyalty! That's all it was, no, I don't think she ever really loved him. Don't be silly, that is ridiculous. You didn't know her as I did.

Victor? He was my music student. So I knew him, too. Oh, he was charming enough if you like the awkward type. Endearing, I suppose, in a boyish way. But so immature! Talented musically but lacked the discipline needed to be very good. The dreamy type. You know.

So when Victoria told me she was engaged to him I was...well, I was shocked. So shocked I don't remember what I said, even. It certainly wasn't "congratulations," I can tell you that much! And oh, I do hate when I speak without considering first. I remember the look on her face.

That fierceness? That loyalty? It was for Victor now. Not for me. If it ever was.

That did hurt.

I don't want to talk about it anymore. She didn't have any more lessons after that day. She had a wedding to prepare for. Ask me something else. If you have to.

I beg your pardon? What are you talking about? I'd never.

Oh. That. That's what you're talking about. No. You don't understand! It wasn't about him.

Now, I'm not proud of this. I realized at the time and I realize now that it was very, very wrong of me. I simply didn't know what else to try!

Ladies never reveal their age, but I don't mind telling you I was very nearly forty. And he was Victoria's age, nineteen or so. But I don't mind saying, not in a boasting way, but I was the most well-known beauty for miles around when I was his age. And I am well aware that I have not aged badly at all.

No, I will not give you details. You can imagine. I'll tell you that he came for his lesson the day after the engagement was announced. And before we got to the lesson I congratulated him. And we chatted. I steered the conversation a little.

I'll never forget how enormous his eyes got when he realized what I meant!

"I-I-I couldn't...w-w-welll I-I-I mean, I...I'm f-f-flattered," he stuttered, flailing his arms about and nearly tripping over a chair as he backed up. "Under d-d-different….er, ah...circumstances...maybe? I mean yes! Or, w-w-who knows. But I'm engaged."

"But not married." Coy, girlish, suggestive. Batting my eyelashes a bit.

"But I love Victoria." Not a stutter. Not a stammer that time.

I let him leave. He tripped over the railing on the front steps and landed in a bush. I let him sort himself out. You should have seen his face, though. His eyes. The way he was looking at me, his mother's age or not. You knew he was tempted! In love or not, you could tell.

Victoria deserved better than that, let me tell you.

Of course the wedding went forward. I was there. Victoria was beautiful. Such a lovely bride. I did feel some envy, I won't deny it. For her youth and her promise and the whole of her life ahead of her. For the fact that I had to admit to myself that she didn't feel the same way about me as I did about her.

Admiration. Friendship. That was all I meant. Just that.

I suppose she just saw me as an old spinster teacher. That hurt a bit, too. But until I let my mouth run away with me she'd always been kind. I don't think Victor would have told her what happened between he and I. Why should he, it was nothing!

So I went to visit. Yes, this was two days ago. Monday afternoon.

I'd not seen Victoria in months. I'd brought a belated wedding gift. Such a pretty house Victoria had! I can play piano very well and I'm not a bad dancer or singer either, but I could never have made all the pretty things Victoria did. Quilts and pillows and wreaths and embroideries and oh, all sorts of things. Flowers, too, flowers everywhere.

Victor was the one who answered the door. Victoria wasn't home, he said. But he let me in, offered me tea while I waited. He was so awkward! It would have been adorable if it had been someone else. But because it was Victor it was nothing short of appalling. The way he acted. Eyeing me sideways and rubbing the back of his neck constantly. Blushing!

In the lovely house he shared with his lovely wife, with all the pretty things she'd made for him, being so shameless! Can you believe it? I told you, I told you, what I could tell that day of his last lesson with me!

Our conversation grew a little...heated. I am an enthusiastic person. I simply am. And it cuts both ways, both good and bad. And I suppose I was a little enthusiastic, in the bad way, about his behavior and his fitness for Victoria and didn't mind telling him so.

No, I don't remember what we said.

I'm not sure how he injured himself. He was such a bumbler sometimes, especially when under stress. Remember the story about falling down my steps?

When Victoria got back she saw me first, sitting in the parlor. She had the sweetest little shawl on, and little mitts to match, and I wondered if she'd knitted them herself. I stood up to greet her but before I could say a word she saw Victor. And she gasped. A half-gasp, half-scream, more like.

She didn't even say good afternoon to me, which did hurt. Quite a lot. She tore right past me to where I'd laid Victor on the sofa. He was bleeding quite a bit. I hadn't noticed before. The sofa was red, in my defense, and his coat was dark.

"Victor?" she said, dropping to her knees by the sofa. I watched her smooth her husband's sweaty hair off his forehead. The way she said his name. Just...the way she said it. I don't know, I just remember it very clearly.

That's all I can remember for a little bit. She must have panicked, I suppose? Her eyes, those I remember. They were wild. I was in front of her, trying to calm her down, hold her back, explain, anything!

And she shoved me. Hard. I stumbled and nearly fell. Then I shoved her back. I wasn't thinking.

I want you to understand. She fell. Tripped. I didn't shove her nearly as hard as she'd shoved me. I'd never do such a thing. But she happened to fall against the corner of the tea table. Just here, on her temple. She struck it hard. And then hit the hearth.

I went to help her, of course I did! I rang the maid who sent for the doctor. And now here we are.

Here we are.

Oh Victoria. You're really certain? You weren't lying to me?

No. Of course you weren't. Silly of me.

May I ask you something? Just your opinion?

Do you suppose they're happy? I mean, if there is such a place as the land of the dead. An afterlife. Do you think she's angry at me still? I hope Victoria isn't angry with me. I hope I can find her when I arrive there. Just to explain.

And to tell her how much I loved her.


	2. Trophies

Trophies

I am astounded with myself. I was sloppy this time. Mother would have been ashamed of me.

Although she'd been dead for almost thirty years my mother's presence still permeated this little flat. She'd brought me up here. Taught me at her knee. She was a brilliant, cunning woman who doted on me. I do believe she's the only woman—only person—I have ever loved.

It's dingy. Small. Musty. Beneath me. Beneath her, too. But still we lived here and now it is mine, and I keep it for times such as these, when I need a place to lie low. To relax and focus.

Nothing helps me focus like a look through the trophy case.

Not a case, really. A box. A handsome little box my mother gave me, made of mahogany. I think she kept her rings in it.

It's filled with my treasures.

I sat at the small table, a fire in the dirty grate and a single lamp burning. The box open before me. I know the contents as well as I know the contours of my own face. I fingered each treasure gently, examined it, admired it, enjoyed the memories. A silver ring set with a ruby. Oh, Caroline! Elizabeth's pearl earbobs. Dear Louisa, oh, she was my favorite, the only one of them all that was really a shame. Her eyes were the same color as her emeralds.

I picked the oldest trophy out of the box. An onyx cameo that had to be a century old by now. A real antique. Beautiful piece. The one bit of jewelry I'd kept from that lot. There had been quite a lot of it. Emily really had brought me every single family heirloom she could lay hands on, the dear thing.

I'd seen Emily's portrait announcing her debut and set out to woo her. It seemed so easy! I still reminisced every now and then at how easily she fell for me. How easily she agreed to elope. Not a complete success. I was messy, because I was new at it. I soon learned, as my other treasures could attest.

It was a mistake to go back to that village. Mother always warned me never to get too cocky. Too assured. That's when you slip up. That was her own downfall, poor Mother. And nearly mine.

Like mother, like son, I suppose you could say.

Victoria Everglot. A sweet-faced little thing, doe-eyed and a little pinched. Eighteen and making her debut. On the marriage market. Like a sign. Back to that remote little village, to try the same game again. Maybe lightning could strike in the same place twice.

I was wrong.

That Victoria. Frigid. I almost thought I'd have better luck with Lady Everglot. She reacted to me as a normal woman would. Truth be told I did briefly consider this. With Lord Everglot dead, Lady Everglot would have the money, no messing about with dowries or in-laws. But murdering the husband and then getting in with the widow is a time-consuming process, and one that generates talk.

That's what almost got me caught the once. I picked up dear Rosemarie's silver thimble, admiring it in the lamplight. I set it aside.

That left the latest of my prizes. I realized I was not proud as I lifted the small golden crown from the box. This last time had been a miserable failure. No finesse. Only rage. I do dislike losing my temper. And I despise strangulation, it's brutish. At least there were no witnesses.

I need to take some time to rest. To think. What would Mother have done? A few weeks here to lie low, then move on again. To better things, next time.

Looking closely, I saw that a few mousy hairs still clung to the crown. With distaste I plucked them off. I sprinkled them into the fire, watching them curl and turn to smoke.


	3. Death Wish

Death Wish

January 20, 1981

I don't think I can die. Well, not easily, anyway.

I suppose this is a note? You know the sort I mean. I know what I'm going to do and I sat down to write. I don't want you to wonder. A note. You know.

I don't like using the "s" word.

Anyway. I want to be dead. I'm not sad, not really, not any more than usual. None of that depression they talk about now. I'm just tired of being alive. I never thought I'd feel that way! But I am going to be 110 next month and that is too much time on this planet.

The last straw was John Lennon' s death.

Funny, isn't it? All of the carnage and mayhem and existential horror the world has offered during this century, losing all of my dear ones except for you, growing to be this old, and what breaks me is Lennon being murdered.

I couldn't tell you precisely why. But there it is. I heard, and I knew. I no longer want to be part of the living world.

Perhaps it's the fact that I know what's waiting that's keeping me alive. Maybe it's the fact that I've visited the land of the dead? Danced with them, laughed with them, loved them. I've walked the streets and heard the music and saw a little of the last mystery. Now it seems that the land of the dead, where nearly everyone I've ever loved is, doesn't want me back.

I'll tell you the truth. I've never told. Not anyone: I tried to go after your Nana died. I don't want to talk about details but clearly it did not work, and I realized that I should wait for my time. That was—I need to stop to do math, excuse the scribbling in the margin—twenty-eight years ago. I was the same age as Victoria was, and I figured my time had to be soon.

Then there was the bus. You've heard the story. I was literally run down by a bus, an 84 year-old man, and I lived. Even healed fairly quickly. That's when I really knew something was strange. I was in the hospital, lying there all bandaged and in traction and in and out of consciousness. And I thought: I was hit by a bus. I am an elderly man. I shouldn't have walked away from that. Well, not walked, both legs were broken, but you see what I mean.

And then Lydia died. Your auntie Lydia, you never met her, this was before you were born. She was only in her sixties. She'd been drinking and smoking far too much, and she worked too hard. Much too hard. It was a stroke at work that did it. I wasn't there.

You can't imagine how it feels to lose your children. It's wrong. It's the most unnatural thing in the world, a parent outliving their children. I've lost all four of them. Poor Catherine, she and her husband both, you were only little when that happened. The roads are narrow in Monaco. And poor Mary, at least she went quickly after she got sick.

Anne, your grandma, when she got cancer, that was the worst. I don't need to tell you about that. You were there. I loved your aunts dearly and I always liked to pretend equally, but I'll go ahead and admit that Anne was my favorite. If it hadn't been for you and your uncles and your dad I think I would have tried again then.

But you don't need to think about that. Not on my account. Everyone went so quickly, that's my point, after Anne. Except you and me. I don't care what anyone says about cancer not being contagious, that was too strange to be a coincidence.

Sorry. I didn't mean to sound flip about it. I'm really not flip about it. Any of it. Loss, grief, death. Family, love.

It's a big mystery. I might have visited the land of the dead, and I know what I'm in for, but I don't know what it's like to be dead. I don't know what it is to die. And I don't know how the butterflies work. When are you "free"? Will Victoria be "free" before I can see her again? It's been so long…

So that's what it is. I do care about you. Thank you for making it so I could stay in my own house. You never once made me feel like an extra or a secret or a nuisance. I'm very sorry to have to do this. I'm ready. I just know that I am.

Your loving Grandad.

January 28th, 1981

You didn't need to call the ambulance! That was the whole point!

Please do not do that again, I am serious about this and you must respect my wishes. I don't think I have ever in over a century pulled rank as the patriarch of the family, but: I am 110, you are my last direct descendant on this side of the planet and you must listen to me. I just survived an overdose and a week in the hospital with only some indigestion, so I must be tougher than I look. It might turn out that I'll be looking after you when you're old, at this rate.

Leave me where you find me next time. And kindly tell the doctors I do not need to be in the psychiatric ward, I want to come home at once.

-Grandad


	4. Dear Jane

Dear Jane

October 25th, 1959

Dear Jane,

How lovely it was to hear from you. I am flattered to know that I am your favorite author. I didn't know children still read my books! I am so pleased that you enjoy them. I would be honored to be the subject of your school project, and I enclose my answers to your questions herein.

My brief biography, as you request: I was born Victoria Maria Everglot in 1871, in a very small village in a very small country that ceased to exist after the war. My father was Lord Finis Everglot, descended from one of the very first British families that founded the village centuries ago. My mother was Maudeline Elvstead, also of an old village family. Her father was a decorated general.

(My maternal great-uncle, Torvald, was the village historian. I've enclosed a copy of his brief history of the village for your research and for more background. My family is covered extensively.)

I was married very briefly when I was eighteen. My husband was a minor nobleman. By the time I was nineteen my husband had died—he was quite a bit older than I was. I never remarried nor had any children. As a young widow I worked as a governess and as a lady's maid for several wealthy families. The last woman I worked for was a dowager countess, and she was very kind. We were close, so much that she included me in her will. With that inheritance, along with what I had earned so far from the stories I had published, I was able to provide a sum for my parents and to emigrate to America.

I wanted a new world, you see. I had grown tired of the old one. I had just passed my thirtieth birthday when I sailed on the SS New England for Boston (where you live, I see!). I was on my own for the very first time in my life. I wasn't as frightened as I thought I'd be. I spent a year in Boston, teaching at a school for wealthy girls and writing for magazines. Then I moved to a tiny village along the coast of Maine, where I have lived ever since.

I am writing you now from my two-room cottage near the sea. It's a clear and cool day. The pines are dark green, the sky is bright blue and cloudless, the leaves on the maples are bright red. I have the window open so that I can smell the sea, and the breeze is crisp. The apple tree in my yard is still bearing fruit. I still write stories and essays, and have sold a few lately. I write every morning. I have a sleek black tomcat named George. A girl from town, Ruth, comes in a few days a week to check up on me, cook and clean, all of that. She is a lovely girl and a wonderful baker. I am eighty-eight years old.

Dear me, that was not brief at all. Use of that what you like, Jane, I hope it is helpful to you. To your next question:

My inspiration for the Van Dort sisters came from a number of places. I am very pleased to learn that the stories about them are your favorites. They were my favorites to write. I found that I came to care about them as if they were real people, too, Jane. It made me smile to read that Lydia is your favorite. She is mine, as well.

She and Catherine, the oldest sisters, were inspired by two lovely girls who were my charges at one time. I confess I took their personalities wholesale. I was with them from the time they were six and seven to the time they left for school. Like their fictional counterparts, the only thing they had in common was how much they loved one another, even though they often had strange ways of showing that love.

The younger two sisters came mostly from my imagination. Anne was how I saw myself as a young girl—she is, in fact, largely based on me. And Mary, the youngest, is the girl I wished to have been!

I always received many letters from girls who loved to read about the Van Dort sisters, and each and every one touched my heart. As I said, those characters gave me such pleasure to write and invent stories for.

Your next question, Jane, is a bit more difficult for me to answer. I will do my best. The answer is yes. The Corpse Bride was real. Victor Van Dort was real. He and I were engaged. The village's dead really did come back for that one night. I saw the Corpse Bride myself, and I saw the dead in my parents' house at my wedding dinner. Uncle Torvald was there, too. He wrote all about it in the book I mentioned above, you can look there for details.

It happened, Jane. A living man married a dead woman. And then he drank poison to marry her properly. Even after over seventy years it hurts my heart to write of it. I wasn't there to see, and I left the village soon after with my husband (who, though not a nice man, was not a murderer as far as I was aware. I added that bit for interest).

I suppose that question leads to your next, about why I write, and what inspires me. I took a little break, Jane, while writing to you, so that I could have a tea and think properly and give you an honest answer. What I've come to is this: I write the life I wish I'd had. My very early stories, my romances from when I was barely more than a girl, were all wish fulfillment. My lost love inspires me.

I loved Victor Van Dort, Jane. He was the one who was meant for me. I was sure of it when I was eighteen and I am sure of it now, a little white-haired old woman in a tiny cottage a world away. It's all in my stories, my dear Jane. I needn't explain it to you here. All of my feelings, the love and the anger and the pain, the way I hope Victor felt about me, the life I wish we had had together, the death I wish we had had together. It's all in my stories.

That's why I write. To explore what might have been. What I so dearly wish had been.

I've rambled again, I see. I hope I successfully answered your question. People my age do tend to go on when we're asked questions, especially about our youth! I think I have nearly finished the list you enclosed. As I've written quite a bit already and likely more than you desired to know, I will be as brief as possible with your last questions:

When I am not writing I enjoy gardening, knitting, and taking walks in the pine woods and by the sea. No favorite color, but muted tones please me. Anglican, not practicing. Mr. Adlai Stevenson.

Writing to you has been a true pleasure, Jane. I do hope the answers I gave help you to complete your project successfully. You sound like a bright young lady, and I wish you all the best. I have also enclosed a signed first edition of your favorite of my books, Wedding Flowers. Please enjoy it and read it in good health.

Very sincerely yours,

Victoria, Lady Bittern

P.S.

Yes, Jane, I would very much enjoy being your penfriend. I will look forward to your next letter.

V.


End file.
